A Flick Through the Diary

It's been an interesting couple of weeks.  Quite apart from my car journey last weekend and its unexpected ending (see last week's post here), lots of other 'stuff' has happened.  There have been acute aspects of long-term matters, expected developments and surprises.  Such a mix deserves more than just a place on the diary page!

Let's start in the kitchen.  For many years, it's been my habit to split a loaf of bread into three and store it thus in the freezer, removing one third of a loaf at a time for use.  The reason for this is simply to prevent the end of a loaf from going mouldy before I get around to using it.  For this process I use old bread bags to pack two portions of each new loaf into and, in order not to introduce any contamination - and thereby undermine my aims from the outset - I sterilise them first by popping them in the microwave for half a minute.

This week, I followed my usual habit, but the microwave objected, expressing its feelings with a flash, a bang and a puff of smoke.  After packing the bread away in the freezer in un-sterilised bags, I ventured gingerly to test the microwave with a mug of water.  To my surprise and great relief, the water got warm and I've used the machine quite normally ever since without further mechanical protest.

Before we leave the 'engine room', I have to admit a superlative degree of procrastination when it comes to maintenance arrangements.  Over the last few months the hot tap has begun to drip.  It moves easily enough to the off position but, it still allows water to drip out unless I apply pressure at the 'head' of the tap.  Once I release that pressure the drips recommence.   One night, out of curiosity, I measured how much was being wasted and found that almost a litre had accumulated from bedtime to breakfast.  Inspired by recent videos of the discoveries as the level of water in the nearby reservoirs has got lower and lower, and realising that my drips are contributing to this decline, I finally called the agent yesterday to arrange for a plumber to visit.

Last week the postman delivered a large cheque from a finance company.  It looked real so, in great excitement, I paid it into my account.  On looking closely at the covering letter, however, I became suspicious that this could be a scam.  There were many factors, but one in particular was the sentence about 'if you have difficulties in banking this cheque', which invited me to 'provide your bank details to us on the above number and we will cancel the cheque and pay the funds into your bank account.'  I decided to leave the money in my account for a few days to see whether it would be clawed back once the banking system discovered it wasn't real.  Meanwhile I wrote to the company expressing my misgivings.

Deciding this week that sufficient time had passed, and that reclamation would have happened if it were going to, I distributed the cash: some to charities, some to savings and some left for current use.  Within hours of my doing this, I had a phone call from the finance company explaining that the cheque was genuine.  After expressing my relief, I asked for more explanation.  It transpires that one of my pension policies had a 'guaranteed minimum pension' clause and, at the time my Financial Advisor had arranged the transfer of this policy as part of tidying up my occupational pensions, its value didn't meet that guarantee provision.  What I have now received is compensation for this oversight ... some nine years after the event!

The flow of my editing work for WEBBS has dried up for the moment.  On one hand this has allowed me to focus on other things, such as family history, but it also leads me to feel unfulfilled as regards my contribution to the charity's work.  My supervisor is taking advantage of this lull to offer help to another team who are coping with an urgent request and, as a result, some of this week has been spent 'back in the typing pool', keyboarding scriptures in the Balochi language.

And - last for this post - I can report that my development work as church treasurer has reached a 'plateau'.  I've finally agreed my 'DIY ledger' on Excel to the embryonic system I've been setting up on QuickBooks and, when three bank statements arrived this week, I was able to enter them with some confidence into both systems.

What excitements will the next weeks hold, I wonder?